A Note for Today: The Phillies come into tonight’s game hot after sweeping the Nationals, winning four straight and finishing their homestand 7-2. They are just one game behind the Mets in the battle for 4th place in the National League East. Tonight they face rookie righty Jacob deGrom who has been serviceable for the Mets in 17 starts this season. His 6-6 record is evenly split 3-3 both at home and on the road; albeit, he sports a paltry 1.93 ERA in New York compared to 4.07 on the road. He has 101 strikeouts on the season versus 35 walks.

My thing with bunting is that you should only do it with someone that doesn’t have the skill to move runners in other ways. If chooch doesn’t have that ability with his bat control, what was he doing in the 2 hole so often this year? I stand by my original statement, dumb idea giving away an easy out.

I hate the sacrifice bunt. Always have even before the era of SABRmetrics.

According to Baseball Prospectus, “the Run Expectation with a runner on first and nobody out is higher than it is when there’s a runner on second and one out, the situation usually created by a sac bunt..”

A double steal???????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????

Sandberg has not had the greatest roster but he really has managed poorly this year. Maybe there was a reason that even though he was a poster child for the Cubbies, he couldn’t get a shot in their system. Then again this stint, as so aptly described by Francona, this may be his mulligan.

Is there a particular reason you like giving this guy your money? Sunday they face Dillon Gee who they have at times beat up on, and that’s the game you don’t want to bet? Tell you what, give me the guy’s number, and I’ll take Burnett coming off of his best start as a Phillie against Gee.

Can’t blame it all on Sizemore. Diekman put three men on all by himself; the hitters didn’t even have to do anything but stand in the batters box. One or two of them were bound to score eventually. Then there’s the issue of Sandberg’s pitching decisions. I wouldn’t have pulled a guy cruising through six innings for a pinch hitter doing as poorly as Brown. If they were still behind, maybe. But not when they’re in a tie game. To me, it would have been better to have Buchanan bunt, then a real .300 hitter would have been up. No wonder Revere doesn’t have very many RBI when he never gets a chance to hit with runners in scoring position.

I’ll give Sandberg the benefit of the doubt for a little while longer. I’m not sure Buchanan would, or even should. No wonder he’s bitched before.

And I would also agree that Buchanan should have bunted in that situation. Tough to know what would have happened in the sequencing that would have followed but I don’t think pulling a pitcher with 60ish pitches through 6 innings in a tie game is the right move either.

Any time a player makes a fielding error, the ball should have been caught. Unfortunately, no one is perfect, and those imperfections always seem to happen at the worst possible moment.

I still can’t bring myself to blame the loss solely on Sizemore, who most of the time is a huge upgrade defensively from Brown. Diekman didn’t do his job, and the offense didn’t do theirs, either. Plus, the in-game management could easily be questioned.

I truly wish I’d said something last night when this happened. But there was a ball hit to Sizemore earlier in the game that seemed to befuddle him as well, but he caught that one. I remember thinking- sheeesh, that former gold glover looks like Dom Brown out there.